Jim Marshall, Minnesota Vikings “Purple People Eaters”

A formidable player into his 40’s as a defensive end. For many years held the record for starting the most games (270) in the NFL. Best known perhaps for a famous miscue – running the wrong way after recovering a fumble! Good article about him. And I’ve embedded a video at the end of the article – the wrong way run. 

Jim Marshall, a former Minnesota Viking who started in more consecutive N.F.L. games than any other defensive player, but who may be best remembered for romping 66 yards into the wrong end zone after recovering a fumble during a game in 1964, died on Tuesday in Minneapolis. He was 87.

When he retired after the 1979 season, two weeks before his 42nd birthday, he had started 270 consecutive regular-season games at defensive end. Quarterback Brett Favre broke that N.F.L. record decades later in his waning years with the Vikings, finishing with 297 consecutive starts.

Marshall also started in 19 playoff games during a dominant stretch for the Vikings, who won the N.F.C. Central division 10 times in 11 years across the 1960s and ’70s. But although Minnesota advanced to four Super Bowls, it lost every one decisively. (The Vikings remain one of a dozen N.F.L. teams that have never won a Super Bowl.)

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Marshall was “a physiological impossibility,” Bud Grant, the longtime Vikings coach, told Sports Illustrated. “He just doesn’t rip, bust or tear.”

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He finished his career with 30 fumble recoveries, among the most for an N.F.L. defender. The most indelible came in October 1964, when the Vikings stripped running back Billy Kilmer of the San Francisco 49ers (Kilmer later became a quarterback with the team) after he caught a pass in the fourth quarter.

As the ball settled into the grass at the San Francisco 34-yard line, Marshall pounced. But he had been trailing the play, and on regaining his balance took off in the wrong direction.

After jogging into the end zone and launching the ball toward the stands — officially recording a two-point safety for the 49ers — he began searching for teammates to celebrate with. Instead, it was San Francisco’s center who ran up and patted him on the back. As reality set in, Marshall put his hands on his hips in exasperation.

Although the Vikings held on to win, 27-22, the play became a staple of football follies programs. Marshall never acted bitter.

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Some suggested that his career had been unfairly defined by the wrong-way run. He managed to find humor in the situation, though, joking about the play shortly after flying back to Minnesota following that road game in San Francisco.

“They kept telling me to get up in the cockpit and fly the plane,” he said of his teammates in an interview with The Minneapolis Star. “That way we’d end up in Hawaii instead of Minnesota.”